Tag: beale street

Going to miss the zombies!

Dang! Now I find out that I’m gonna miss the zombies too!

Few posts back I relayed that I was going to a beer festival weekend after next weekend. Today, Paul posted more information about the big zombie attack … and it’s scheduled for that Friday.

I saw the zombies last year when they did it. They come down Beale Street, and then make a left onto Main and come down to right around where I live. It was a lot of fun to watch last year, but a bit chilly out and so there was not a lot of people out on the streets. Since they do it during the South Main Art Trolley Tour, and it’s probably going to be nice and warm out, then this seems like it will be a good one. You know, lots of carnage, riots, random destruction… followed by an afterparty.

I’d even be interested in getting all zombied up myself if I was going to be here. Maybe I could be zombie bum.

Oh well, I hope Paul gets a lot of good pictures.

Time for a show

Here’s a picture of the sign above the New Daisy Theater on Beale Street. Guess which show I saw tonight?

Marquee above the New Daisy Theater

As Mikey would say, I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.

Henry Rollins was awesome. I highly recommend the show if he’s coming to your town any time soon. Really. Go. Now. Get tickets.

Although the show was slightly too political for my tastes, he uses the politics to jump off into segues about touring around with various bands and into the interesting punk rock scene, such as it is. Since I’m a huge fan of most every band mentioned (although clearly not as huge a fan as Henry is), it’s a hell of a good time. Comedy interspersed with fun stories about global travel to “hotspots” around the world. He also does a fine impression of Christopher Walken (not to mention a damned good impression of Iggy Pop).

So , if you are not particularly conservative (although the neo-cons are quite welcome, it’ll give them something to be pissed off about later), then really, go see the show. Henry is a damn fine storyteller, and an extremely interesting person. It’s a bit of a shame he’s so anti-beer, he’d be a fun person to hang out at a bar and chat with.

LibertyBowl Parade

So I dropped by the Saucer yesterday, and ran into Mikey and Paul, who were having drinks and going off to the LibertyBowl parade on Beale. Now, I’m not one for sport much, but a parade should be worth seeing, I figured.

Unfortunately, it was one of the more redneck parades I’ve ever seen.

Okay, so there were a lot of fans cheering and shouting things like “game” and “cocks”, but the parade itself was extremely weak. There were the required high school marching bands, and there were people on firetrucks and such, and A. C. Wharton riding around, and that was all cool, but the “floats” were just weak. AutoZone just stuck three big semi’s with the logo on the side in the middle of the parade. FedEx tried even less and just had a standard delivery truck all by itself. Most of the “floats” were basically existing rides or very hastily decorated. It was about what I would expect a parade to look like if it was thrown together in, say, a week. Rather disappointing.

However, I did see Semi-Charmed Kat on the Ride The Ducks truck, throwing out beads and moon pies. Unfortunately, I believe she was deaf at the time and so did not notice me and Paul screaming out “Kat” to get her attention.

I got a couple of rather poor pictures from the parade on my new phone, so I’ll post them later when I get near a Bluetooth enabled PC.

Here’s the shots I took using my new phone:

Word from the scene

Okay, so I go out tonight mainly to fuel my hunger and thirst. While I have plenty of stash packed away to fuel the thirst, I’m sadly low on foodstuffs. It’s been an interesting couple hours.

First, I head over to Wang’s. I’d just like to state, for the record, that this is the best named Chinese place, ever. Forget the play on word places, Wang’s doesn’t mess around when it comes to suggestive names. Wang’s.

Wang’s is right up the street, less than a block away. They used to be over at #1 Beale, but that old building got demolished (nobody seems to really know why), and now they’re over at the corner of Main and Gayoso. They’ve been there for a few months, I’ve just been too lazy to stop by. And I must say, their new digs? NICE. They have possibly the best stage I’ve ever seen in a restaurant. I may drop back over in an hour or so to hear whatever band is playing, because they did not skimp one bit on the sound system, or the stage. It’s huge, takes up like a quarter of the place, and looks like they could put on one hell of a show.

Anyway, I get some chinese food and a couple of chinese beers, and notice that the place is practically empty. This naturally concerns me, because I like the places around here to do well. Doing well means they stick around which means more fun for me, because I ain’t leaving anytime soon.

So I finish my meal, pay the extremely reasonable tab, and head over to Sleep Out Louie’s, or as Paul calls it, the Union Avenue Branch Office. They have a couple playing in there that I had not heard before. Pam and Terry or some such thing. I cannot recall. In any case, they’re pretty good. I listen to them a while, while playing some NTN Trivia and drinking mixed drinks, since I’m not quite trusting their beer dispenser system yet. Seriously, I love Louie’s, and I make it a point to go every Sunday morning if possible, but the beer taps need a major overhaul. First they had to clean the lines, then the fridges went out so it was warm. And IMO, it was never really cold to begin with. Still, they have very cheap liqour, so I tend to stick to the mixed drinks and we get along just fine.

In any case, Louie’s is dead too. There’s like three tables full, and nobody at the bar, and this is unusual for 7:30 on a Saturday. So I pay my cheap tab, and head to the Flying Saucer, (aka Paul’s Second Avenue Branch Office). And they’re practically empty too!

I have one beer, then ask around, and appearantly there’s not only a baseball game going on tonight, but some kind of concert. Looking around the intarweb, appearanly Widespread Panic played last night and is playing again tonight. I had no idea. That’s what I get for working hard all week and not paying attention. Not that I’d go and see them, but still, I like to be in the loop on this sort of thing.

So here I am at home, enjoying a Red Bull and Ketel, and typing this worthless drivel. Oh well. With any luck, Mandy will stop by later in the week on her way to NC, although I am doubtful at this stage. It’s kinda out of her way and all. Yes, this is a blatent attempt to guilt Mandy into showing up anyway. )

Enjoy the links.

Whole body pain

Is this some sort of consequence of being 30 again? This post-drinking weekend whole body pain thing? Because if it is, then I’m going to have to start researching high quality medications again. My ankle is hurt, the muscles in my back are strained, I can’t turn my neck… all because of the music festival.

To make it even more fun, my A/C and icemaker both chose this weekend to stop working for no appearant reason. So it was like 85 in my apartment all weekend. That tended to drive us outside and drink, though, so in that respect it wasn’t so bad. I’ve fixed the icemaker now, they’re fixing the A/C today.

Anyway, it was a good show. I enjoyed Cake and Blues Traveller a lot. Yellowcard was surprisingly good when they did a Weezer cover. I sat around the Blues Tent for a few hours on Sunday and enjoyed some beer and blues from several artists as well. Also ate a lot of BBQ. So it was good weekend in that respect. Beale Street was fun and had a lot of interesting characters. One dude we saw walking around dressed up as Gene Simmons ended up on the front page of the Sunday paper. )

So it was fun. But I still need to find drugs.

Memphis in May

Okay, so MiM is coming up soon, and the Beale Street Music Festival is calling out, crying out for recognition. As usual, I will be having over any of my friends who care to come for a weekend of music, ribs, and debauchery, albeit not necessarily in that order.

So, all the information you want can be found on the Memphis in May website, and I’ll be emailing everybody soon with details on my discount. It will not be much, but considering that the single day price at the gate will be $25 this year, it’s better than in the past.

The band lineup is also available on their website, but if you’re not up for web navigation, here’s a direct link: (PDF)

Dates are May 5th, 6th, and 7th. There is one other good thing this year. In the past couple years, they always saved the best for last, as Mandy can testify to. This year, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Sunday’s lineup does have some quality bands, however, IMO, the best music is going to be on Friday and Saturday. Including B.B. King, who’s right at the top of Friday.

Anyway, come one, come all.

Edit: I sent out an email to several people with the details. If you didn’t get that email, and you want to come, email me for those details.

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